Champions Trophy 2006 - Underrated

With the 2008 version going ahead, I think it's time to pay tribute to what was really a very good tournament that often gets lost in discussion between the dire WC, Twenty20s, IPL and so on.

For me, off the top of my head it had:

- Very low scoring games
- Dew factor and conditions that threw a spanner in the works, making many games unpredictable
- In fact many of the games were unpredictable and exciting
- WI doing well
- That ball from Bracken to Gayle
- Watto!
- Hilarious podium pushing controversy leading to animal painting

Enough rambling, very fun tournament for mine that doesn't get mentioned enough.

"The PFA does not represent players when they have broken the law and been convicted on non-football matters."- Gordon Taylor in 2009 following Marlon King's release after a prison sentence for sexual assault & ABH

I thought it was an excellent tournament indeed, the format was good and worked according to plan, which is always a good start. And a few things worked in its favour meaning much of the cricket (except when England were involved) was very interesting.

I wasn't a big fan of the amount of seam in the pitches - often teams were bowled-out inside 40 overs or near-as-damn-it. I'd prefer see innings that last the course, but I suppose with better batsmanship they might have. But obviously that's far better than the sort of tournament where 320 repeatedly plays 210 and occasionally plays 321.

With the 2008 version going ahead, I think it's time to pay tribute to what was really a very good tournament that often gets lost in discussion between the dire WC, Twenty20s, IPL and so on.

For me, off the top of my head it had:

- Very low scoring games
- Dew factor and conditions that threw a spanner in the works, making many games unpredictable
- In fact many of the games were unpredictable and exciting
- WI doing well
- That ball from Bracken to Gayle
- Watto!
- Hilarious podium pushing controversy leading to animal painting

Enough rambling, very fun tournament for mine that doesn't get mentioned enough.

- Watson's dismissal of Flintoff after hitting him in the grill with a bouncer. Never cheered an Aussie getting out and Englishman before an never since.

Seriously? The 2004 event was a fiasco in so many ways. Sure, there were some decent moments (the denounement of the final, the England-Australia semi, the India-Pakistan group game, and one or two others) but I could never look past the fact that the tournament was an accident waiting to happen. There was so much wrong with the scheduling, there were too many teams involved, the crowd-control regulations left all sorts to be desired, and this contributed to poor atmospheres, several very poor games, and an overall tournament that, as Matthew Engel so succinctly put it, "did cricket far more harm than good, all of which was obvious and avoidable".

It may have been better than some other ODI tournaments of recent times, but it wasn't a patch on the 2006/07 Champions Trophy for mine.

Forgive me for my memory lapse but it's very hot and I can't think, what was that all about again

On the podium when accepting the CT trophy Pawar was hanging around and Australia wanted to do their celebrating thing so Martyn gave him a bit of a push/nudge off the podium. Blew up into a controversy and needless to say the animals were the ones to suffer